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yakyu otaku - Theodore Daniel Smith

The Disclaimer: The following weblog is personal and possibly fictional, the views expressed herein are not necessarily the view of anyone except my own.

The Man: Hyperenergetic, strange, small and confused. I'm an American who was born in Canada to a half-Jew, half-German lawyer from Cowtown AB and a Swiss-Irish farmgirl from Wisconsin. I was once desribed to myself as a black man who's trapped in a small white man's body but thinks he's asian. To date, I have written one novel, but have yet to publish.

The Story: A lone mercenary wordsmith who's ironically become fed up with the English language decides to search for answers in a country where no one will understand my questions.

**Update! I'm online via air card!! You can also reach me at teddysmith@t.vodafone.ne.jp (my japan celly mail adress) or phone me at (itnl code 81) 908 479 6672.

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Joined on: June 3rd 2006
Last Login: November 21st 2008

Blog Entries: 98
Photos: 624
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by yakyu-otaku, order by Date newest first.

By yakyu otaku
November 14th 2008

Meeting Her Daddy—part 3

Asia » Japan » Ibaraki

Mr. Kim rose and announced he was going to bed. He was tired. He should have been. 7 hour commute from his office in Osaka to his home in Ibaraki. It was past midnight and the whole world and the kitchen were silent, all but for Soon-Mi’s plucky, drooping piano notes. Her mother watched her play through the open doors of the study for some time and then stood and went and laid her hands on Soon-Mi’s back, relaxing her instantly with her mother’s hands, and told her to go to sleep. She turned and blessed me with an approving smile, [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
October 21st 2008

Meeting Her Daddy—part 2

Asia » Japan » Ibaraki

I sat in the chair adjacent to Mr. Kim with a glass of Shochu, intermittently watching the rocks break up in the clear, cold liquid through the beady summer condensation on the glass. Soon-Mi ran back and forth, depositing her excess of articles from the living room to her old bedroom, fretting skittishly about her mother who’d apparently driven off to the station to get us about five minutes before we’d arrived by taxi. Slowly, Mr. Kim addressed me, in a very calm, but markedly interrogative tone. He wore a thin, interested smile and asked a very standard battery of questions: [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
October 8th 2008

Meeting Her Daddy—part 1

Asia » Japan » Ibaraki

Yours Truly and Yurie
In the Seibu dome Right

After having blown the shutout, Toyota finished threw a fly ball to center for an easy out to finish the game with Fukukawa stranded on second: 6-1 Giants. There was the expected celebration from all the orange, another series win over the Swallows and another thrilling bound for the towel wavers in the race to catch up with the Tigers for the pennant and a home-team-advantage playoff seed. I pissed self-righteously in the urinal, bitching about it with the other weary commuters from the left, “Demo naa…Kuso-no-kyojin nante makeruno ha saiaku…” “Da yo naaa&# [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
September 9th 2008

Under My Little Green Umbrella

Asia » Japan » Tokyo

The next day (Thursday July 3rd) was bright and warm. The summer heat was some days off yet and walked to work instead of taking the bus, swinging my briefcase with a musical sway. There a certain pleasures in life—like cicada song on a sunny morning, ice coffee and a cool cross-breeze, and watching the Yomiuri Giants lose in their own stadium—that make waking up worthwhile in the toughest of times. My day passed quickly and tiny umbrellas in hand, Hiro-chan and I were out the door at 5:35 and on the 5:45 Chuo-Special Rapid train for downtown with Suidoubashi on [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
August 28th 2008

The Beautiful Game

Asia » Japan » Tokyo » Kokubunji

F.C. Tokyo Fans
50 minutes before kickoff.

After grappling with the issues of my mortality, I was emotionally prepared to give the sport a chance. I’d been considering going to a J-league game (not to be confused with the metaphoric J-league I play in) for some time now. There’d been an massive brawl on the news a few weeks back when Gamba Osaka played the Urawa Reds up in Saitama, and that looked like fun so I figured I’d go see it for myself sometime. The problem was I was already seeing Seibu on most weekends and had two other teams on the side, and I just didn’t [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
August 15th 2008

Gunma Again: Comparison - the Effects of Blood Loss - Dating Advice from a 16 year old - Existential Experience - a Grave visit…and Soccer.

Asia » Japan » Gunma

Yaki Manjuu Stand

Soon Mi had emailed me that afternoon (Friday June 27th) and asked if I couldn’t go with her to Ibaraki to finally meet her parents and all of her friends from high school, there was some kind of reunion-esque thing planned. I recall being a tad irritated with the suddenness of this request in combintion with the fact that I could have sworn that I already mentioned I was going to Gunma that weekend—and that I’d been planning on doing so for some time. In her invitation email she had sounded rather excited about the idea of me accompanying her on [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
July 18th 2008

謝り

Asia » Japan » Tokyo

“Ayamari” -It means “apology,” but the character can also mean “gratitude” or "refusal" depending on the context it's used in. Furthermore it is homonymous with 誤り—a mistake. Whether this multiplicity is a product of coincidental etomological evolution, or whether this is evidence of some deeper seeded origins behind of our modern compound-feelings is a question I am intellectually ill-prepared to gander on. It seems obvious to me though, even if largely inexplicable, there is a connection between these rather varied concepts. One of [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
July 16th 2008

Tokyo--Dome Once Again

Asia » Japan » Tokyo

Hawks Ouendan
Assistors to the 2008 Kouryuusen (interleague) Championshis

She left early in the morning and I slept of the remnants of my hangover and any remain bitter taste of last night (June 21st) and then got up and got ready to go to the ball game. I threw on my Johjima Jersey and my Mariners cap because we were going down to the dome to cheer on Softbank Hawks. I don’t have a Softbank Jersey because A.) I don’t respect Sadaharu Oh (even though I should) and B.) I’m a Lions fan. A Lions fan cheering on the Hawks is roughly equivalent to a Yankees fan cheering on the [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
July 14th 2008

Simple Solutions to Everyday Problems

Asia » Japan » Tokyo

Skank Labratory

The next evening (Friday June 20th) I went down to Toyoda station for a long awaited trip to my favorite musical bar with my favorite musical girlfriend. Things had kind of ended on a flat note when we last split at Tachikawa station so I figured I’d take things off on a more dulcet tone and after a quick dinner with Takashima-kouhai (whose wife is now 8 month preggers I found out) I went out on a stroll over to Tamadaira market and sent an email asking her what she was wearing and what color was it. She said, her yellow [View Full Entry]

By yakyu otaku
July 10th 2008

Back and Forth I go

Asia » Japan » Tokyo

Seibu School!
"Which jerseys will the team where in next month's Classic Throwback jersey series?"

The week that followed was comparatively uneventful. The girl this time is seemingly without a penchant for drama, which is something I’d have killed (Yuki?) for last year but my unfading anxiety of tranquility and belonging and my love of the hardship and struggle has made a virtual Atari 2600 of my brain and set my heart back and forth like an oscilloscopic pong ball. I made an abrupt call to Yuu on Friday (June 13th) and worked an invitation to her family dinner down in the Yokohama suburbs. Yamato station has to be the Cabaret club capital of Kantou. I [View Full Entry]

TravelBlog » yakyu otaku

yakyu otaku | Theodore Daniel Smith | Travel Blog

yakyu otaku - Theodore Daniel Smith

Blogs & Travel Journals

Meeting Her Daddy—part 3

Meeting Her Daddy—part 2

Meeting Her Daddy—part 1

Under My Little Green Umbrella

The Beautiful Game

Gunma Again: Comparison - the Effects of Blood Loss - Dating Advice from a 16 year old - Existential Experience - a Grave visit…and Soccer.

謝り

Tokyo--Dome Once Again

Simple Solutions to Everyday Problems

Back and Forth I go